Tinker
Tinker is one of the twelve power classifications created by the PRT still in modern day use.“I do,” Weld nodded. He’d memorized it as a rhyme, as suggested by his old boss. Maybe that had been the intention from the start: Mover, Shaker, Brute and Breaker. Master, Tinker, Blaster and Thinker, Striker, Changer, Trump and Stranger. - Excerpt from Sentinel 9.1 Tinkers have the ability to fabricate alien or advanced technology.Tinker - Building alien or advanced technology. Thinkers arise from solutionless problems over long periods, culminating in crisis moment. - WD Rulebook: Character Creation - Trigger Capes: Classifications Methodology Tinkers are distinct from other parahumans in that their powers don’t work through them so much as they enable them to fabricate things:Tinkers are capes with powers that don’t work through the cape so much as they enable the individual to fabricate things. By creating tinkers, the entities can explore options, taking powers that have been explored in depth and allowing it to be explored in more depth, or attempting to ‘crack’ the particulars of a field or specialty of a species from earlier in the cycle. - TINKERS, document by Wildbow. They can create devices or alter existing devices well beyond usual restrictions of education, knowledge, resources, or physics.Can create devices or alter existing devices well beyond usual restrictions of education, knowledge, resources, and/or physics. Tinkers are less dangerous when removed from their gear, but should not be assumed to be harmless. A typical tinker can artificially assume any number of other classifications, depending on specialty. Specialty should be appended to the classification in every case possible. (ie. phasing specialty or electricity specialty) Threat level 2+: Team is notified as to tinker classification. Disruption is encouraged, with use of flashbangs. Threat level 5+: Electromagnetic pulses are authorized to disrupt gear, with some property damage likely. Threat level 9+: Other tinkers or liasions should be contacted to better inform about capabilities and to answer immediate threats. - PRT Master Reference - Classifications - Tinker Most Tinkers have a specialty, an area of technology in which they operate either exclusively or better than others.“Close enough,” Armsmaster said. It struck me he would be a Tinker, if his Halberd and armor were any indication. That, or he got his stuff from someone else. He elaborated, “Well, most Tinkers have a specialty or a special trick. Something they’re particualrly good at or something that they can do, which other Tinkers can’t. Bakuda’s specialty is bombs.” - Excerpt from Gestation 1.6 Some draw on real world technical knowledge while others rely more on instinct.Research within Cauldron had included tinkers, drawing many conclusions about how tinkers operated. Some were well vested in mechanical details, drawing a great deal from it to fabricate their work. Others had little idea about the technical aspects of what they created, relying more on instinct and creativity, relying more on their agents to draw up an idea of how their work would function. It was quite possible that other capes were doing the same thing. - Excerpt from Interlude 21.x Tinkers are among the most flexible parahumans, as a typical Tinker can artificially assume any number of other classifications depending on specialty, in addition to drawing inspiration from the powers of other parahumans or the work of other Tinkers.What really drives tinkers, in a lot of cases, is the inspiration aspect. We don't really see this, because we mostly see tinkers who are doing their thing with what they've already built. But tinkers vary a great deal in how they get their ideas. How fast, how many, how varied. In many cases, tinkers can find their way to new ideas by studying powers or studying the work of other tinkers. Bakuda develops time and space warping bombs (the slow grenade, the feature-warping thing she almost put up Grue's nose) by scanning and studying stuff that was affected by Clockblocker and Vista's powers. Armsmaster does much the same, with the time stop halberd (Clockblocker) and EMP pulse (Battery). In Dragon's case, well, she has access to a wealth of confiscated and 'submitted for internal review' PRT stuff. From the shard's perspective, this drives competition and puts one tinker against another. Stealing another tinker's stuff to study both hurts the tinker and is a fast route to upping the quality of your own stuff. On a similar level, a tinker that's getting in fights is going to find ideas coming hard and fast (Bakuda), compared to a tinker that just hangs out in their workshop and actively avoids confrontation (Leet). - Spacebattles comment by Wildbow. Subtypes Tinkers can be divided in twelve sub-categories:For the purposes of this document, we loosely categorize methodologies into twelve sub-categories. As previously established, each tinker trigger is different, and different circumstances lead to different sorts of approaches to tinkering, ranging from the combat heavy to the megaproject focused or the noncombat tinker. The key focus in determining what the methodology is, as stated above, the nature of the problem the tinker faces, in the course of the trigger. - TINKERS, document by Wildbow. Trigger events Tinkers arise from problems without solutions that take place over long periods, culminating in crisis moment. The elements of the trigger build up over weeks or months and are inexorably tied into the moment the character triggers.Tinker triggers involve a time component, specifically a longer period of time building up to the trigger itself, and an element of a problem without solution. This isn’t to be confused with triggers where a bad life circumstance leads into a distinct event - in such a case every character would be a tinker. The elements of the trigger build up over weeks or months, and are inexorably tied into the moment the character triggers. - TINKERS, document by Wildbow. The exact nature of the problem informs the type of Tinker that emerges (see also the table above), while other key elements, such as surrounding features, context and details determine the Tinker’s specialty.The key factors to note here are the nature of the problem without solution and the key elements of the trigger itself. The problem determines the tinker’s methodology. This is how the tinker derives inspiration, builds, and the breadth of options available to them in building. The key elements are the surrounding features, context, and details that determine the flavor of the resulting powers, the specialty itself. - TINKERS, document by Wildbow. Process and Particulars A Tinker starts out with having ideas. A wide variety ideas that just might catch on what ideas the shard might backup.The shards are helping to put ideas in the tinker's head or round out ideas as the tinker has them, supplying blueprints or outlines, or giving them a 'feel' as to how easy it will be to put something together. When the tinker pulls out a tricorder-like device and scans a power signature, the shard helps supply the language and interpretation for the tinker. During the build process, the shard itself supplies a helping hand, or outright takes over at a given period of time, during which time the tinker isn't wholly there (blacked out, in the zone, lost in their work) and the shard is doing the work. Sometimes this is pronounced to the point that the tinker isn't wholly sure what they'll end up with. - Reddit comment by Wildbow. It would link up on the 'skill tree' that the shard provides the tinker with.Example? Power source. He either uses something mundane, or he uses something tinker derived. But if he uses something tinker derived to power his newest project, then he has to think of all the other power sources he's used, make sure that this one is sufficiently different, gauge the risk, and then move forward. Same goes for the mechanisms, the overall design & goal, and so on. Defiant has the 'tinker up efficiency/hybrid/minimized technology' skill tree. Stinger has the 'missile' skill tree. Tecton has the 'Seismic and Architecture' skill trees. Leet has all of them, but all throughout those trees are entire sections with 'Use of this technology has a X% chance to fail'. - BobTheNinja reacts to Worm - The Final Countdown (Interlude 26) >> NO FREAKING SPOILERS!! (Wildbow, SpaceBattles.com, 2014-04-11) These crafting skills will, generally, only apply to the tinker's specialty and any superfluous items will be based on the tinkers native talents.They do not need the craft skill, but crafting stuff like uniforms and melee weapons could well lean on their ability to put together nice things & know how to work materials. It helps but isn't mandatory. Crafting specialty stuff counts as if they had the material/field focus for their tinker stuff. One tinker without craft could put together working gear for a bodysuit or suit of armor, but their bodysuit and armor would be pretty bare bones. Another that had the craft skill could put something together and make it look nice, or know how to work in pockets, or get more armor on there, handling the mundane side of things. - Wildbow on Reddit The tinkering process also incorporates scans, typically through a device that uses infrared lasers to identify their subject, be it powers or other objects. These scanning devices can take various forms.When you went to convince the Mayor of our way of thinking, Trickster carried the devices Leet designed to record the particular signals you use to command your bugs.” “Which is how you built the swarm box.” “The Famine Engine,” Leet said. - Excerpt from Monarch 16.13 A typical tinker will start crafting their technology, but unlike a typical artisan's process the Tinker's will be interpolated with the shard stepping in during the process, using its exclusive features to tune the resulting technology.Typically the shard handles the backend during the building process, using senses the human doesn’t have access to in order to assist and provide the actual tinkertech part of the builds. - TINKERS, document by Wildbow. The tinker typically enters a fugue state during the process, not noting when the shard might be augmenting a piece of material further then any process the tinker is visibly using.It varies from tinker to tinker. In the tinker's handbook, I break tinkers down into types. Every approach changes in little ways. By and large, however, it's a case where you get inspiration like any creative or engineer might, and as you decide to put it into action, the ideas fall into place in your head. Some tinkers might tune out at some point in the process, they might get into the zone, black out, or lose track of time. Other stay lucid but might only do certain things at different points in the project because they 'feel right' or because of ideas in their heads about wanting things to stay balanced or to maintain a seemingly logical flow of A to B to C, conveniently skipping why it was seemingly logical in the first place - if pressed they would have a hard time explaining. The viewpoint the reader gets isn't that far divorced from the viewpoint the tinker gets. :but that seems incomplete. It seems incomplete because it is an incomplete process. In the background, the shards themselves are taking a hand in things, supplying an extradimensional limb to hold something in place that the tinker isn't wholly aware of, or a power-driven equivalent to a screwdriver in another reality that connects the aforementioned A to B. This is why tinkers have such a terrible time trying to teach others how to build their tech, and why another person can't just sit down at a table and copy everything the tinker does. - Reddit comment by Wildbow. Thanks to this fortification, tinker materials make it work better, longer, expanding and ensuring certain properties and more to makes to materials work toward the tinker's design.1. They also have the power supplementing the building process and tech. You end up with the power sort of reaching out and making sure the circuits in your fancy new chipset don't get too warm during one part, keeping circuits from bleeding together. Also factoring in gravitational waves and magnetic forces and detailed stuff, or even just pumping a bit of extra power into something to keep the gyros spinning. Putting energy into a reactor in the same way your pyrokinesis might put fire in your hands. - Reddit comment by Wildbow. Something not replicable by human technology. Thus, unlike an artist making a painting the process doesn't just take place on one plane of reality, in fact the full process can't be seen in the regular 4-D reality humans are evolved to deal with.Question 2: Inner Workings of Tinkers Tinkers may think they grok what they're doing, but the reality is that they're letting their passenger use extraordinary senses, awareness, and inspiration to fill the gaps. They start working, they focus on aesthetic and on other effects, but all the while, the passenger is figuring out some other stuff behind the scenes, or tweaking reality. TL;DR is that tinkers can't pass on tips to humanity. Even Masamune, even Dragon. - Reddit comment by Wildbow. A Tinker "painter" would be able to wring out colors from paints that shouldn't be possible to put in minute details with tools far too large and imprecise for such work. As an addendum given the wide diversity of parahumans in the world it is not unknown for tinkers to wildly diverge in the methods they take to achieve their results.For method tinkers, I think the thing to consider is, well, a person sits down and uses materials to tinker up advanced equipment. First off... how can you toy with that process? Tear the sentence down, and look at the words and the assumptions. :A person sits down and uses materials to tinker up advanced equipment. What if they aren't alone? Do they need crews? Do they borrow capes to help with the building process and use those capes to inform the end product? Do they create brain-reading engines and kidnap great minds and hook the engines up to the great minds to borrow talents and abilities to refine the end product? :A person sits down and uses materials to tinker up advanced equipment. Can you think of methodologies that don't involve having a workshop? Or that have special cases for workshops? Is there a methodology that can only create things on the fly? What benefits would these on-the-fly tinkers get to make what they do more doable? :A person sits down and uses materials to tinker up advanced equipment. Is there a methodology that could eschew the usual materials, or have a high demand for them? Do they emphasize the creation of materials (like the 3+ dimensional laser chip that Kid Win shows Chariot?) as their whole 'thing'? :A person sits down and uses materials to tinker up advanced equipment. Too many bases to cover here, but look at all the assumptions of tinkering and play with them. Do they finish every job? Or is there something else that fills in the blanks? Secondary power (changer, breaker?), do they finish it in the field, to custom specifications (customizing vs. a target foe?). Do they not make actual equipment, but something more esoteric, like potions, chips, implants, life? Do they only tinker to fix things that were broken, to improve them? In place of equipment, it could be entirely self focused (cyborg parts) or entirely selfless equipment (outfitting others). - Reddit comment by Wildbow. Through the above mentioned scanning process and possibly even appropriating other Tinkers research,“Tinkers can read powers and people and get data that they can then use for their tinkering stuff. A tinker who makes flamethrowers can use my blueprints and figure out how to do some targeting tech. Or, like, even if it’s not powers, I could do deep scans of a thinker and I could get power data I could use for my cameras. Which is where right now I wish I could talk to a really good precog or postcog, and see how their power works.” ... “We saw some of this with Snag and the others, remember?” ... “Yeah. Every tinker is different so it’s not every tinker that does it, but it’s most, I think. We all want our data and inspiration. When I went to pick up my big projector box, I sent some flying cameras in. Which was safe to do since Mama Mathers was gone, right?” - Excerpt from Eclipse x.4 a slim majority of tinkers can 'push' their Tinkering portfolio into other specialties if they are willing to invest the time and energy while dealing with the challenges inherent with bing an active parahuman.Research & Getting to AI So if you wanted to get more into the neighborhood of Dragon-like stuff and independently functional creations, you might want to get into AI stuff. In terms of of research, AI is Impulse x Data on the Detail Generator sheet, tinker tab. So it's a question of how easily you'd get into that. If you worked in any of the Data or the Impulse related fields, then it's something you could fiddle with on your own. Keep in mind it's less a question of how far away the option is (distance doesn't matter, exactly) and more the number of turns you have to make to get there. Example: if you were a radiation tinker with flexible access to what they delve into, these would likely be the options open to you (stuff along the impulse & elemental lines) - ignore the duplicate entries in white; it's just for table clarity. Now, keep in mind that whatever they delve into would probably be tainted or modified to reflect the stuff they started off doing & primarily specialize in. Working in AI with a Radiation start might resemble pulling a Pickle Rick only with harvested brain matter and purposefully generated tumors in said brains that give you avenues to hook them up to computers to do the thinking/AI stuff, rather than microchips. But AI is a straight line away and so it's something they could dabble in from the start, assuming they had the freedom with their methodology (hyperspecialists are stuck in one specialty, for example, as are a lot of binary tinkers) and the time/resources to research. They could get there a lot faster by scanning stuff like thinker brains or other people's created life to get the necessary info. Let's say you were a Vat tinker, though. Your lines of specialty run along the Artifice (tinkering with tinkerings) and Life spectrums. It's something of a jump to get from there to the AI field. I might, if I were your GM, rule that you had to cover several bases to get there... This would be a vat tinker's options in terms of what they can get and where they want to go with AI stuff. To get to AI they'd need to go up and make a right turn at Lifesign or Tutoring, or go right and take a northward turn at Clones or Nanotech. As a GM I might say, hey, you can't go straight to AI or even try to skip to getting there. You gotta delve into this stuff which gives you the background knowledge. So you might need to delve into the computer systems involving Lifesign (scanning people, reading lifesigns, targeting weak points), the skill-focused stuff in Tutoring (here, wear this hat, it'll upload kung fu know-how to your brain or download your traumatic memories for me to upload into your buddy's head), the growth of humans with human thoughts and memories (see what Bonesaw did with the S9) or the finer details of nanotech (colonies of microscopic computer systems/machines). And as a GM I'd say 'pick two, delve into them, field test them, and develop enough of a foundation you can go into AI'. Again, that's ~if~ the tinker is allowed to deviate or explore to that degree. Many wouldn't be. But if you could then as a vat tinker you'd then have a huge vat and you have a computer kludged into the top of it and the downloaded memories and skills from the Tutoring stuff you did, and you have a colony of Nanomachines that form a structure in the depths of it and create a kind of nanotech brain in a jar, and it then serves the functions an AI would. This would be a pretty extreme & advanced jump, and keep in mind the tinker is having to get by, gather the resources & do their usual thing in the meantime. This'd be a massive side project with a lot of requirement in resources & time with little return until it came together. Few can afford to do that when they could be upgrading & advancing their core stuff. - Wildbow answering tinker questions on reddit. Further helped with borrowing others research. As Tinkers often place trackers on their gear, it’s generally unwise to steal it.“Taking a tinker’s stuff to keep is a bad idea, what with GPS signals and tracking and all that, but at the very least, we can use this to get out.” She swept her arm over the room, where stuff lay on every surface. Dragon’s voice echoed through the chamber, “I can hear you, Tattletale. Do not use a tinker’s devices. Power supplies can overload, weapons and equipment can misfire. Only the tinker who made it can verify the devices as safe and operate them properly.” “Right, sure,” Tattletale called out with a note of sarcasm in her voice. “Because it’s not like there’s any high profile mercenaries out there who’ve made a career off of using a tinker’s stuff.” Dragon didn’t reply. Had Tattletale found a sore spot? I knew the Dragonslayers were mercenaries who had taken the parts of one of Dragon’s armored suits to outfit themselves as high tech mercenaries. - Excerpt from Parasite 10.4 Non-Tinker Usage Due to the process outlined above a Tinker device is nigh-impossible for normal humans to recreate, reverse-engineer, or even maintain. Tinkers not only work with highly advanced technology, production and maintenance is also extremely precise, requiring the aid of the Tinker’s power to get right.There's more to it, but Gearboy might not understand all the factors going into the crafting or maintenance process. He leans on his power for some things. Creates a situation where, even with Gearboy creating detailed guides and painstaking video tutorials that walk through how he repaired a simple hull breach in his robot suit, you could get metallurgists and robot designers working together as a committee and missing some critical detail like how ambient humidity during the weld impacts the cross-exterior conduction and complex stresses for the future, or even power-granted awareness of planetary gravity/rotation/tidal influences on nano-crystal matrices. TL;DR: It's bullshit. - Sufficient Velocity comment by Wildbow. Even extremely minor factors that the Tinker isn’t consciously aware of can have great effect on the end result: Examples include ambient temperature, radio waves and earth's superposition in the galaxy.Wildbow: Think about it this way - you sit down to build something, you have a partial idea in mind, your power supplies the rest of the instructions and components. You get into the zone, you tinker away, and a lot of your actions become automatic. The shard, meanwhile, is working in concert. They supply the ideas and the mental pictures, what's necessary and what's up to your imagination. Then, as you get underway, they assess variables like ambient temperature, radio waves, earth's superposition in the galaxy, the materials you're working with, fine tuning to an extreme. People using a camera can't track all of the individual details, so they copy what they can, but the pieces don't fit together, the metal has superfine stresses and vulnerabilities they aren't aware of, the elements don't jibe, and it just doesn't work. KateWalls: Ohhhh. Thats something I didn't realize, that the shards are giving them an unconscious extra-sensory Thinker power to analyze the materials and environment beyond human norms. For example, if kid win picks up a piece of glass he's never seen before, even though his eyes only work with visible light, his shard can tell what sort of UV or IR transmission and refraction indexes it has, and gives him a nudge. Is that about right? Wildbow: Varies from tinker to tinker, but that's about right. - reddit comment by Wildbow. Tinkers are often able to modify devices of other Tinkers, although even here the end-result will be of lesser quality.A tinker named Gearboy is commissioned to produce a mechanical battlesuit for the army, ok. That’s doable. But if the suit breaks down, or if it gets normal wear and tear, there’s really only one person who understands it well enough to fix it (beyond surface damage). The tinker who made it. Kid Win mentions, when modifying the earbud with Armsmaster’s lie detector, that anything he does will naturally be less elegant and the work will suffer for it. The same applies for anything in regular use with non-tinkers. The soldiers won’t know how to fix up the suit. So it gets damaged: hole in the chest. Repair team checks there’s no damage to internal components, patch up the hole with a metal plate welded in place like they might with a vehicle, only to find that the suit’s overheating and it’s walking funny. They call up the tinker, but he’s elbow deep in another job. They resign themselves to having the suit deployed for no more than an hour at a time. - comment by Wildbow on Scourge 19.6. On the other hand, others – even ordinary humans – are able to use Tinker devices. Tinkers even equip teammates with items (although this is unusual),“It’s not customary for tinkers to design things for teammates. If they do, it’s on a relatively small scale, simple. Kid Win making Gallant’s armor, for example. Any device requires a great deal of upkeep. Time is spent tuning, calibrating, repairing and identifying problems. Each device created is something the tinker then has to take time to maintain, and mass production means the tinker becomes tech support more than an innovator. Dragon and I don’t sleep, or sleep very little, but even for us, it isn’t effective. Far better to invest our time into the artificial intelligences and the ships.” - Excerpt from Drone 23.5 while some Tinkers, such as those from Toybox, sell their goods on the black market.“Toybox is a black market organization,” Miss Militia said. “Tinkers who operate solo find life rather difficult, due to a lack of resources and the fact that gangs and government organizations are very, very persistent when it comes to recruiting them. Faced with the prospect of spending their lives on the run, trying to avoid being forcibly recruited into one organization or another, most turn to the Protectorate or the Wards. For those few who don’t, Toybox is… was a refuge of sorts. Tinkers would join, share technology, stay in the enclave as long as they needed to build up a reputation and whatever tools they needed, they would share thirty-three percent of any proceeds with the rest of the group, helping to keep others afloat. Toybox sustained itself with barter, by moving frequently, operating between the scope of heroes and villains, and by selling less-than-legal goods to criminal groups.” - Excerpt from Cell 22.2 Such effort must always be balanced by the fact that a single misstep can render the entire device non-functional if not dangerous,If you have a tinker who makes armor/powersuits that have white hot metal as a key feature, yes, he could theoretically equip his teammates, but so much of it is intuitive that it's hard for that tinker to really specify some of the particulars. There are a lot of little things that go wrong in the field, or things you need to adapt to. Did a cape slime the entire battlefield? Maybe that affects coolant venting, which affects the cremation fist's charge-up rate. That affects the hyperthermal reactor which means the entire suit starts feeling sluggish. Really easy to fix if it's the tinker, but nobody else will have a clue of the big picture. Did something get broken? If it's not the tinker using it, then it's going to be broken until the tinker gets their hands on it again or you might even have to abandon it. If the tinker's in the pilot's seat, then it might be a simple adjustment here or cinching something shut there. Generally when gear is given out, it's heavily restricted in capability ("Okay, well, it's the suit I usually use, but I had to adjust the dampeners so it's slower, weaker, and you don't have access to the meat hammer or related tech"), it's a oneshot thing ("Press this, then this, aim using this"), or both. - Wildbow on reddit. understandably frustrating.LexiconWrought: Imagine spending several thousand dollars and a lot of time building your dream computer, top of the line components with all sorts of gimmicks, overclocking, VR, the works. Imagine entering, say, a high stakes esports competition, lots riding on a victory, lots to lose with a defeat. Now imagine handing it over to your grandparent. It's hard enough to watch them try to use their smartphones, but that's probably nothing compared to what a tinker experiences seeing someone else try to use their gear. Wildbow: Perfect analogy. I like how it captures the frustration. - Analogy on reddit. Regardless a Tinker is a huge asset to any team and are thus highly sought after,“But he’s risking his life,” Chariot’s mother spoke. Chariot frowned. “He is. There are responsibilities. But honestly? There’s zero way he’s going to be able to go out and try out any of the stuff he’s made without running into trouble. People are going to pick fights, just because he has powers. If he tries to hang out in a workshop he establishes on his own, they’re going to find him, strong-arm him into putting something together for them. Not just villains, either. Heroes too. Being a tinker doesn’t just make you a target. It makes you a resource. It’s why pretty much every tinker out there is a member of a larger, more powerful team.” “Then Trevor could just not use his powers?” she spoke. “Sure,” Kid Win folded his arms, leaning back against the back of the couch. “What do you think, Chariot? You think you could keep from using that power of yours? Be normal?” Chariot frowned, looked down at his scratched-up hands, “No.” - Excerpt from Sentinel 9.4 if not outright abducted.See: Bonesaw This is why tinkers are known to form communes for protection or join powerful teams. Common combinations with other ratings The thing to understand with tinkers is that they can assume any number of artificial classifications thanks to the technology they create. Blasto and Cask are good examples of this phenomena. There are those whose tinkering works through an alternate means, such as those who can create tinker devices through their presence, or those who have a separate power distinct from their tinkering. Thinker abilities are also known to occur, as they may compliment the tinker power letting them use their power more effectively. Interestingly there are parahumans that create items and technology that are explicitly not tinker-tech yet still acts as a vector for their powers.They make things, and these things aren't tinkerings, but they do have a kind of alien hand with external knowledge guiding them. They want to complete a task and they'll fashion tools in the course of preparing for that task. There might be a pattern or aesthetic running through it, depending on who they are or what they end up doing, but the effect is much the same. WildBow Fortuitous Crafting Thinker in Wog}}Redcap Hatmaker Comment by Wildbow on reddit Role in the Cycle The entities create Tinkers to explore options, taking powers that have already been explored and allowing them to be explored in even more depth, or attempting to ‘crack’ the particulars of a field or specialty from a species from previous encounters earlier in the cycle. PRT countermeasures Tinkers are less dangerous when removed from their gear, but should not be assumed to be harmless. The PRT generally appends a Tinker’s specialty to the classification whenever possible, but has a hard time accurately rating a Tinker's threat level.Tinkers are very hard to slap a rating on, but as with anything, they're judged based on the threat they pose to the PRT/community. Bakuda went from threatening to blow up a building with strategically placed explosives (Tinker 6) to getting access to powers to study while working under Lung and alongside Oni Lee, then showing what she was truly capable of when Lung was arrested and she tried to build the ÜberEMP. - Spacebattles comment by Wildbow. Trivia *Shards in general do not allow for space travel,By and large, the shards would sabotage attempts at going to space. Even Sphere's moon base was probably doomed from the start. - reddit comment by Wildbow. and other technologies the entities consider high-risk, such as AI and nano-technology, are heavily restricted. Armsmaster's shard was regulated to kingdom come to avoid such scenario imho So do AI tinkers. AI tinkers get heavily limited like nanotech tinkers do - IRC chat, posted on Spacebattles. Site Navigation Category:Terminology Category:Power Classifications Category:Tinker